


afterthought

by markohmark



Series: asian american extracurricular activities [5]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, By Enemies I Mean Rivals, Competition, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2020-05-30 21:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19411735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markohmark/pseuds/markohmark
Summary: During the first meeting, Donghyuck had been utterly clueless as to what he was up against. He had smiled at Jeno, thinking him to be a B div recruit because Jaemin had brought him along, and warmly welcomed him to the team."It's nice to meet you," Donghyuck had said. "I think we'll have lots of fun this year.""Yeah, definitely," Jeno had agreed, his eyes crinkling in a heart-fluttering way as he smiled. Then, a week later, he had promptly smoked Donghyuck'sassduring the first round of testing.(Or, Donghyuck and Jeno are rivals on their school's Academic Decathlon team... until they aren't.)





	1. our dreams, we're blind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [supremekermit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supremekermit/gifts).



> an early birthday present for vy, who has been such a sweet friend and my fellow boba lover/nohyuckfker69/markhyuckfker/etc and i love sharing a brain cell w/ u when i write T___T
> 
> also, if anything should be clarified, please let me know!

At the beginning of junior year, in Donghyuck’s AP Lang class, the teacher asks them to write a story to describe themselves in twelve words.

Donghyuck writes: _In the end, I am nothing but a number on a list._

+++

If Donghyuck thinks about it for long enough, he can trace the cause of all his problems to Jaemin Na.

"I think that's a _bit_ much," Renjun replies. "Like, honestly, I think you're to blame for the majority of your problems, no offense."

Here's Donghyuck's reasoning, at least:

It had been the beginning of his junior year, a bright September afternoon spent in Mr. Nakamoto's cheerfully disorganized English classroom. It was the first Academic Decathlon meeting of the year, and all the usual suspects had already filed into the room, plus a couple of sketchy-looking kids who Donghyuck suspected would be shoved into C division once properly “convinced” by Mr. Nakamoto. Then, Jaemin Na walked into the room—now, this part wasn't a surprise, as everyone knew he was a shoo-in for B division—and Jeno Lee entered right on his heels.

And that, _that_ was when things started to get dicey.

Here are the facts:

1\. There are only three spots for the A division on Academic Decathlon. The divisions are sorted by GPA, with A div reserved for students who usually receive… A’s. So, by the virtue of being a decent student, Donghyuck lands himself in the most cutthroat division of Acadec. It's the worst.  
2\. Yerim, the team captain, and Mark, the de facto vice-captain, are shoe-ins for A division. Mark won a record _five medals_ at Nationals last year, while Yerim had been the overall highest scorer. They’re a power pair if there was one, even if Yerim insists that she’d never date Mark in a million years ( _RIP Mark Lee_ ).  
3\. This leaves exactly _one_ spot remaining in the A division. Last year, Donghyuck had barely missed making the team. This year, he's out for _blood_.  
4\. And here's where the problem comes in: Jeno Lee is both A) not entirely incompetent at Academic Decathlon and B) good at school to top _that_ off. So, yeah, he’s the perfect storm to fuck up every plan Donghyuck’s ever had of making A div on the Acadec team.

During the first meeting, Donghyuck had been utterly clueless as to what he was up against. He had smiled at Jeno, thinking him to be a B div recruit because Jaemin had brought him along, and warmly welcomed him to the team.

"It's nice to meet you," Donghyuck had said. "I think we'll have lots of fun this year."

"Yeah, definitely," Jeno had agreed, his eyes crinkling in a heart-fluttering way as he smiled. Then, a week later, he had promptly beaten Donghyuck during the first round of testing.

"Okay, but Jeno's on the math team," Renjun reasons. "Of course he's going to beat you on the math test, he probably didn't even need to study for it." He sighs, flipping to the next page of his history reading. "Can't you just, like, beat him in the next rounds?"

"Yeah, I'm literally taking the economics test _tomorrow_ ," Donghyuck replies, flicking Renjun on the arm. "Which is why I need you to quiz me. Please? Do you really want me to lose to Jeno _Lee_?"

Renjun sighs. "He's not that bad, you know," he says, taking the Economics binder from Donghyuck. "Agh, this shit is _nasty_. How the hell do you memorize this crap—"

"—Just test me starting from there," Donghyuck interrupts, pointing at the top of the page. He's heard it all before, that distaste from people who don't understand what it's like to do Academic Decathlon: _Why would you willingly memorize a thousand pages worth of information? Don't you, like, have better things to do?_

If Donghyuck knew the answers to these questions, he'd probably be a lot more successful at this whole high-schooler thing. But no, he has no fucking clue why he does Acadec, just that he does it and loves it in the way a teenager loves their delinquent, dirtbag boyfriend—with shame, passion, and a whole lot of defensiveness. And now, he has a whole lot of Economics to memorize.

"Uh... what were the statistics mentioned in Kennedy's state of the union address?" Renjun asks.

Donghyuck closes his eyes. Kennedy, Kennedy. He remembers reading about the number seven a lot of times, though: "Um, seven months of recession... seven years of, um, decreased economic growth? And seven years of falling farm—"

"Nine," Renjun corrects gently. "Nine years of falling farm income."

"Right, yes." Donghyuck blinks his eyes open. "Nine years of falling farm income, but three—three and a half years of slack, or something?"

"Yeah, you're right," Renjun replies. "Come _on_ , you've totally got this."

+++

Donghyuck always spends an hour after Acadec practice waiting for the musical rehearsals to finish so that Renjun can hang out. This year, Renjun has a lead role, and there's no one more proud of the fact than Donghyuck. Junior year is going be their time to shine, Donghyuck had thought, at least until this Economics test.

"How'd it go?" Renjun asks, dropping his backpack down on the table. After rehearsals, Renjun always has this post-acting glow emanating from his face. "Hm?"

Renjun takes one good look at Donghyuck and stops asking. Instead, Renjun sits down next to him to pat his back gently.

"Was it that bad?" Renjun says.

"Not really," Donghyuck replies, head still buried in his arms. "Just— _agh_."

"Tell me what happened." Then, because Renjun's a multi-tasker or maybe just omnipotent, he bends over to rifle through his backpack.

It's a lot easier to talk to Renjun when he isn't looking at you with all of that _intent_. "I actually beat him on the Econ test," Donghyuck admits. "By one question, though."

"It wasn't enough?" Renjun replies, voice muffled by his bag.

"He beat me by _five questions_ on the Math test," Donghyuck says, defeated. He thinks of Jeno, of his stern profile and the serious, blank look on his face, and tries not to feel as if he has already lost. "I lessened the gap, but like, barely."

"You still have five tests to go," Renjun points out, sitting back up with Calc homework and a calculator clutched in his hands.

"That's five more opportunities for him to beat me—to continue to beat me." Donghyuck rests his head on the table again with a loud thud. "Agh, I can't believe I thought I could go through this _again_."

"You can, though." When Donghyuck lifts his head up from the table, Renjun's working on his homework, eyes focused on the paper. See what Donghyuck mentioned earlier re: omnipotence. "You can't just give up before you've _started_ to fight."

+++

So Donghyuck fights. He beats Jeno in Art, Literature, and Social Science—

And then Jeno beats _him_ in Music and Science. 

By late October melting into early November, they’ve finished testing all seven objective subjects. At the end of it, Mr. Nakamoto looks over at the scoresheet and remarks, “Wow, I’ve never seen scores so close! Donghyuck, you’re only a question behind Jeno,” and it feels like _defeat_.

Jaemin’s patting Jeno on the shoulder, grin sharp as he whispers _congrats, bitch_ extra loud, and Donghyuck grits his teeth at the sound of it.

“As always, the teams will be announced after the November meet, which is in a week. As always, we will only be tested on the seven objective subjects,” Mr. Nakamoto continues. “Uh—yes, Jaemin?”

“How much does the November tournament factor into team selection?” Jaemin asks, tilting his head to share a sideways glance with Jeno.

Yuta steeples his hands under his chin. “It’s a salient data point.”

 _Salient?_ Jaemin mouths at Jeno, eyebrows furrowed. All Jeno has to offer is a confused shrug. Donghyuck hides a smirk at that. There’s a reason why Donghyuck wiped his ass in Literature, is all.

Salient means the most important. Salient means, if Donghyuck manages to beat Jeno at the November meet, he’ll be on the fucking team.

Salient means his last chance to win the _war_ , even if he’s lost a battle here and there.

+++

There's one complicating factor in Donghyuck's plan for complete domination in Academic Decathlon, though: Cabaret Night. Mr. Doyoung Kim, the chorus director, likes to describe Cabaret as "a talent show just for the chorus kids... without the rest of the _riff-raff_." Mr. Kim is one of those teachers where no one can ever tell whether he’s joking or absolutely serious about ninety percent of the time.

Regardless, Cabaret is just a glorified fundraiser for the choral program; it takes in a shit ton of money. Getting in to perform is competitive in and of itself, something he and Renjun had tried for last year without success.

This year, the two of them are performing "Video Killed the Radio Star," Renjun strumming along on the ukelele that he learned to play from a five-minute Youtube tutorial. And, well, not to be overly modest or anything, but it's fucking _dope._ The only issue is that performing in Cabaret involves a lot of dress rehearsals before the show, just to make sure that everything runs smoothly.

So a lot of Donghyuck's studying before the November meet ends up like this:

"Hey, Donghyuck, whatcha reading?" Chaeyoung asks, smacking on her gum loudly.

"Uh, Acadec," Donghyuck responds, trying his best to concentrate on the material in front of him. _The wavelength of ultraviolet light ranges from 10 nanometers to..._

"That one of your nerd clubs?" Chaeyoung moves to read over Donghyuck's shoulder, and he can hear her mouthing the scientific jargon to herself. Honestly, if he hadn't been the one studying, he'd be judging himself, too.

Donghyuck grits his teeth. See, Chaeyoung is well-meaning, and a riot to hang out with, generally. Unfortunately, like most of the other theater/chorus kids, her Venn Diagram of interests do not coincide with Academic Decathlon.

"Yeah," Donghyuck replies, sighing. By the time it's his cue to perform on stage, Renjun by his side, he’s gotten barely any work done. The countdown till the November meet, punctuated by end-of-term exams and papers, starts to feel more and more like a ticking time-bomb with every passing day.

And, to cap it all off, Cabaret Night is the Friday night before Thanksgiving. Guess what's on the day after that?

Yeah, the November meet. So, to put it short, Donghyuck is _screwed_. The only consolation is that Senior Districts is on the same day as the November meet, so all of the orchestra kids—including Jeno Lee, who he's seen walking around with a cello strapped to his back more than once—are auditioning that day, too. For some reason, the weekend before Thanksgiving is more of a crossover shitfest than Adam Levine and Travis Scott performing together during the Super Bowl.

"Why don't you just skip school?" Renjun says. He takes a sip of his hot chocolate, then winces. "Fuck, my tongue is burnt."

"That's what you get for drinking the _school_ hot chocolate," Donghyuck replies, almost on cue by now. Renjun, without fail, will always get the shitty hot chocolate from the cafeteria. Donghyuck, who lacks the mental tenacity to make it through the day without at least a mild amount of caffeine, has a deal with Lucas to get lattes from Starbucks in exchange for Calc homework. "Wait, what do mean, skipping school?"

"I mean, not like the truant type, of course," Renjun adds. He looks around furtively, before leaning in to whisper in Donghyuck's ear. "Just like, have your parents dismiss you, then study all day tomorrow."

Tomorrow's Friday, also known as D-1-Day, also known as Cabaret Night. Donghyuck's only made it through reviewing four out of seven of the objective subjects.

"Isn't that—" Donghyuck breaks off, considering. He's been trying to highlight the last couple pages of the Social Science packet, but instead, he had left pink ink over half the page by accident. "I'm _pretty_ sure that's against school policy."

"It's a hundred percent against school policy," Renjun says, completely serious. "Remember Jaehyun Jung?"

"Jaemin's half-brother?" 

"Well, yeah," Renjun replies. "But he was also the PF captain when we were freshmen."

"What about him?" Donghyuck winces at the thought of _Debate_. It's been a long time since he's stepped into _that_ viper pit of insanity, philosophy, and chaos.

"So he skipped school the night before some tournament, and he told the admin, and then he got stripped of his captaincy." Renjun pauses, then adds, "this was all _after_ he got into Harvard, by the way."

"No way." Donghyuck stares at him, incredulous. "And you want _me_ to do it? What the hell?"

Renjun frowns. "Well, it's pretty obvious what he did wrong."

"Yeah, he _broke_ school policy," Donghyuck says. "Like—"

"No," Renjun interrupts. "He shouldn't have _told the admin_ that he was going to do it, duh." He takes another sip of his hot chocolate before continuing. "C' mon, just think about how incompetent the administration is. Legit, just last period, there were like six kids vaping in the bathroom while I was trying to take a piss. How am I supposed to believe that they'd notice, or even give a shit, about you missing school if you didn't _tell_ them?"

"Okay," Donghyuck says. His mind buzzes with the possibilities. With a day off of school, he could buzz through a couple more subjects in time for Cabaret. He could miss school, and cram some more, and maybe not live with the fear of Jeno Lee beating his ass at Acadec any more. "I'm down for beating the system, or whatever the hell, but I don't wanna get kicked off the damn team before I even get on."

"You won't," Renjun says. "I mean, I don't know that you won't, but it's pretty hard to not fuck up. You can do whatever you want, really, I was just thinking." He slumps forward, resting his chin on Donghyuck's shoulder for a moment. "You've been grinding so hard for this Acadec crap, and it would suck to see that be wasted."

"It's actually... not that bad of an idea, the more I think about it," Donghyuck replies, tentative. "Ugh, fuck it. Might as well go all or nothing, right?"

+++

His parents, unsurprisingly, agree to let him miss school and Donghyuck sleeps in a whole _hour_ past his usual alarm, waking up refreshed. Donghyuck's parents have already left for work, a good-luck note left on the kitchen counter, and the house is just as he likes it: empty and peaceful.

It's almost calming to go over Acadec material like this, in the quiet of his own home as opposed to the loud, dark theater where Cabaret rehearsals take place. Here, he can blast Hans Zimmer without fear of bothering anyone around him. His room feels like an island oasis, untethered and far away from the rest of the world.

Then, he gets a phone call. Donghyuck has to check over his screen multiple times to make sure he's reading it properly—when on _Earth_ did he ever obtain the contact information of Jaemin Na?—and nearly lets the call ring to voicemail before picking up.

"Yeah?" Donghyuck says, too confused to even greet him properly. "What's this?"

"Hey, Donghyuck," Jaemin replies smoothly. There's some conversation in the background, too muffled for him to make sense of any of it. "Donghyuck, my pal. My guy." Somehow, it sounds like a threat.

"Uh." Donghyuck swallows. He realizes, with sudden clarity, that if Jaemin finds out—that if Jaemin _knows_ he skipped school—it could be over for him. "Yeah?" His voice cracks, and it hasn't done _that_ since freshman year. His heart is ready to beat out of his chest, catatonic-like hummingbird wings.

"Are you at school right now?" Jaemin continues. "Sounds pretty quiet, on your end."

 _Fuck._ Donghyuck checks the time, just to make sure—it's 12:17 pm, which means he would be in... Spanish right now if he was at school. Okay, cool, he's completely fucked. He can do this.

"Uh," Donghyuck begins, using his left hand to squeeze his nose shut, "I'm actually kinda sick?"

"Are you now?" There's the sound of rustling papers. Jaemin's voice is slightly quieter over the line as he says, "Jeno, he says that he's _sick_." In the background, there's some unintelligible mumbling in response.

The way Jaemin curves his vowels around the word _sick_ , all-knowing and sly, indicates that he doesn't believe shit about what Donghyuck's saying. Which is, well, valid. But right now, it's the exact opposite of what Donghyuck needs.

"Is that all you wanted to ask?" Donghyuck says, impatient.

"Well, now that we're on the line," Jaemin says, "there's a mandatory Acadec meeting after school, you know. And just last period, Chaeyoung was telling me that you're performing at that—what's it called again? November Jam? Autumn Fest?"

"Cabaret," Donghyuck grits out.

"Well, regardless," Jaemin hums, "I hope you get better!" Then, in an undertone clearly not meant for Jeno's ears, he adds, "you know, I'm actually kinda rooting for you."

"As if," Donghyuck scoffs. The two of them had been perfunctory friends during Acadec last year, but all of that had dissipated pretty quickly as soon as Jeno entered the scene. Donghyuck vibes better with the seniors anyway, even if Yerim will sometimes give Mark and him this look of disbelief, like, _I can't believe someone could say something so dumb_. "Why are you giving me so much _shit_ , then?"

"Because I believe in a fair fight, and not underhanded _bullshit_ ," Jaemin replies evenly. "And Jeno's too nice to confront you about it, even if he's kinda pissed."

There's a bit of scuffling in the background, then an unmistakably different voice says, "That isn't true, Nana, give me the damn phone—"

It's the first time he's heard Jeno say any words other than _yes_ , _no_ , and Mr. Nakamoto, I got a forty-six. Donghyuck, in a panic and also in need of actual studying to do, hangs up from the call.

+++

Donghyuck ends up overhearing a lot more from Jeno when he arrives at school, five minutes after all the classes have ended. The final Acadec meeting before the November meet _is_ mandatory, after all, and Mr. Nakamoto, while normally pretty easy-going, is kind of a hard-ass about these things.

It's starting to get cold, but it's still mild enough for Donghyuck to bike back and forth, thankfully. He's locking his bike to the rack, hoodie pulled over his head to cover his ears when he first hears it:

"Okay, but I don't _get_ it, man," Jeno's saying. His footsteps, meandering and slow, as he kicks at bits of gravel, contrast with Jaemin's precise footfalls. "Like, what the fuck? Isn't it against school policy? I _swear_ your brother got kicked out of PF for that shit or something."

"Yeah, he did," Jaemin replies. "But Jaehyun was also dumb enough to tell admin, so." There's a pause in their footsteps, and Donghyuck can feel the goosebumps rise along his arms. "Whatever, I'd never rat him out. Just beat him on Saturday, alright?"

"It sucks _ass_ , though. I have senior districts, too," Jeno says emphatically. They're past Donghyuck, now, walking across the front circle to the other side of the campus. "Whatever, there's nothing I can do about it now..." his voice fades into the distance.

 _Jeno's too nice to confront you about it_ , Jaemin had said. Donghyuck hadn't really been sure of what that meant, but if this was Jeno being quote-unquote _kinda pissed_ then he understands, now. Before, Donghyuck had just thought that Jeno was this quiet, pushover kind of guy, the type of calming personality to balance Jaemin's wild chaos.

But there's a hidden backbone to Jeno, too. And Donghyuck has a feeling that he won't go down without a fight.

+++

“Hey, how did playing hooky go?” is the second thing Renjun says to Donghyuck upon seeing him at the call time. The first thing he had said, of course, was: “Your tie looks atrocious, come here so I can fix it.”

Donghyuck sighs, holding still as Renjun’s fingers deftly untangle the mess that is his tie. He’s spent the past several hours either cramming Acadec or worrying about whether he’s hurt Jeno’s feelings. At this point, he’s so numb that he can’t tell why he cares about either of those things.

“Did you know that Jaemin fucking _called_ me? In the middle of the day?” he asks. “And—”

Renjun bursts into laughter before Donghyuck can complete his thought. “Oh, seriously?” he wipes a fake tear away, still grinning. “Oh, you should’ve _seen_ the two of them during AP Lang. Jaemin was all,” Renjun lowers his voice in imitation, “ _guys, was Donghyuck in your first or second period classes? Have any of you guys seen him all day?_ Everyone was talking about it.”

“Did Jeno say anything?” Donghyuck asks, despite himself. The more he learns about Jeno Lee, the more intrigued he gets.

Renjun starts in on redoing the tie. “Not really,” he says, shaking his head. “He was in, like, complete shock. He kept on repeating _I can’t believe Donghyuck skipped school!_ over and over again, just—completely disbelieving. Like a _bot_. I thought you broke him, for a second.”

Donghyuck sighs. “Did I do the right thing?” he asks. He rubs at his eyes, suddenly weary. No, it isn’t sudden—he just hadn’t noticed it, till now. “Jaemin was all on my case about, like, waging a _fair fight_ and all of this morality stuff.”

Renjun shrugs. “You’ll know if it’s right, tomorrow,” he says. “But honestly, I think there’s a reason why that chivalry bullshit died out in the 15th century.”

“Nerd,” Donghyuck replies, poking Renjun’s forehead.

“No, you,” Renjun says. “You’re the one who does _Acadec_ —” he steps away from Donghyuck, finished with the tie. “Okay, I think we’re ready to perform.”

There are some downsides and some upsides to the whole Cabaret situation. Donghyuck and Renjun’s act is late into the second act, so the two of them have to wait out most of the show in the audience. That in itself is kind of cool, though, because all of the acts are _good_. Donghyuck tries to review Literature while Renjun watches the show, but as soon as Dejun steps out and starts belting “This is Gospel” Donghyuck closes the binder.

“Screw this, I can’t focus,” Donghyuck whispers, twisting in his seat so he can get a better view. It’s just Dejun and a couple of his friends—some of them are family friends of Renjun, he thinks—harmonizing a capella onstage.

“More like Dejun’s singing is too good,” Renjun sighs.

“Sure, it’s just his _singing_ that you’re into.” Donghyuck snorts. “Like, you literally have the hots for a guy who looks like a Jonas brother.”

There’s an often-repeated saying about the chorus kids at their school, something along the lines of _half of them are homophobic, half are gay, they vape in the bathrooms all day_. Donghyuck contests two-thirds of that—he’s never tried drugs, nor does he plan to, and meeting a homophobe is kind of like spotting a unicorn in this specific social circle—but, well, yeah. They’re pretty gay.

“Dejun does not look like Joe Jonas!” Renjun hisses.

“See, you even _named_ the one that he looks like—”

“Shh.” Renjun holds a finger up to his lips. “He’s starting to sing again.”

And somehow, it isn’t long before Donghyuck himself is up on the stage, awaiting the judgment of the audience. He and Renjun have the routine down to a T, after all of the rehearsals. When the stage lights come upon them, Renjun will strum his ukelele and the two of them will harmonize, shining in the center of the dark theater. Standing next to his best friend, onstage, Donghyuck is invincible, as bright as any star.


	2. love it if we made it

“Is everyone here?” Mr. Nakamoto calls, standing at the front of the bus. He’s got this bright white smile, all blinding and shiny and _way_ too excited for six in the morning. The rest of the Acadec team blinks back at him wearily. “Alright, I'm going to take attendance.”

Mr. Nakamoto only calls out a couple of names before nodding to himself. “Looks like half the team will be joining us later, after senior districts,” he says. “They’ll be caught up on all of the tests when it’s time for awards.”

Donghyuck slumps against the window as soon as they start to drive, eyelids fluttering shut as the bus lurches over the speed bumps surrounding the school parking lot. He’s got an hour-long bus ride to the hosting high school, and then after that, it’s showtime. He keeps on remembering fragments of sentences from the Acadec packets— _Spiro Agnew was the running mate of... The Balmer series was for n =... The Beatles released…_ —until everything combines and merges into an amorphous blob of information. He can do this. He can do this.

If there's anything anyone agrees about regarding Academic Decathlon, it's that the tournaments are fucking exhausting. The November meet isn't even a full-fledged competition—they're only taking tests on the seven objective subjects, as opposed to also completing the speech, essay, and interview events—but as a result, the test-taking schedule is more grueling. They're given Math, Music, Econ, and Science tests, one after another, with barely a minute to breathe in between. Even the break, a sweet, twenty-minute long stretch during which he and Jaemin quiz each other on art history, feels fleeting.

There's only one upside to that, which is that the tests are over before he knows it. Now, everything is out of Donghyuck's hands. Whether he makes the team or not ultimately depends on Jeno Lee at this point.

Everyone on the team is boisterous, giddy with the relief of finishing up testing when they sit at the cafeteria for lunch.

"How'd you think it went?" Donghyuck asks Yerim and Jaemin. The two of them flank his sides; ahead of them, the C division kids—Chenle and Jisung, though Donghyuck seldom thinks of them by their actual names—complain animatedly about the tests.

Yerim shrugs. "Math was okay, Science was good, Lit was also not that bad, Social Science was _ass_ —"

"Yeah, SocSci was actually _so_ hard, what the hell," Jaemin sighs. They round the corner to walk over to the cafeteria, where lunch is being held, and Jaemin nearly stumbles into the wall. Donghyuck hides a laugh. "What'd you guys think of Art, though?"

"It was decent, I think," he replies, mirroring Yerim's shrug. "Social wasn't that bad, you know."

"Says the guy who actually enjoys APUSH," Jaemin says. As soon as they reach the cafeteria, they pull out their packed lunches, ravenous.

"Okay, team," Mr. Nakamoto says, clapping his hands together. "How were the tests?"

"Pretty decent, I think?" Yerim responds. She pops a grape into her mouth. "I think Social Science had the worst test."

"What'd you think?" Mr. Nakamoto turns to Donghyuck. "Easy or hard?"

Donghyuck swallows down a bite of his rice before speaking. "Math was kinda annoying," he says, chewing. "Also, like, in the Science test they made you do all of these calculations by hand, which was bad."

"But Social Science went alright?" Mr. Nakamoto replies.

"Yeah." Donghyuck nods, and he can hear Jaemin whispering _APUSH lover_ right behind him.

"Well," Mr. Nakamoto continues, turning to face the team again, "it'll be two hours—maybe two and a half, depending on how _incompetent_ the directors are—before the Awards Ceremony starts. I think the senior districts kids are going to finish up in about an hour? So now, all you guys have to do is relax."

As if. As soon as Donghyuck finishes his lunch, he and Jaemin get their laptops out. There's an APUSH test on Monday, and while Donghyuck has beasted the fuck out of the past two tests, he's been so focused on Acadec that his schoolwork kind of fell to the wayside.

"Wait, are those your class notes?" Jaemin asks, leaning over to take in Donghyuck's laptop screen. His eyes widen in disbelief. "Holy shit, that's so detailed. No wonder you popped off on the last test."

Donghyuck shrugs. "It's not that much—"

"You don't need to be modest," Jaemin interrupts.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. "That's rich coming from you, Jaemin."

After that, the two of them work in silence. Well, as silent as they can possibly manage: Donghyuck has a habit of humming when he studies, and Jaemin taps his fingers on the surface of the table unnecessarily as if trying to get out excess energy. It's actually kind of soothing to listen to, like those ASMR videos that Donghyuck loves to hate; everything fades to background music soon enough.

The Senior Districts kids announce themselves with a rush of loud chatter as they enter the cafeteria. Jeno's the first to reach their table, hand on Donghyuck's shoulder as he peers at his laptop.

"Damn, what are you grinding?" Jeno asks. "This shit's insane, dude."

Donghyuck turns to look at him, wide-eyed. There's no sign that Jeno's upset, just the neutral gaze of Jeno's eyes behind his glasses. Like everything is behind this opaque wall, and Donghyuck can't see for shit. 

"Just APUSH stuff," Donghyuck replies. He turns to Jaemin, who still hasn't noticed Jeno, and flicks his shoulder a couple of times. "Yo, get your airpods out, Jeno's back."

"Jenooo," Jaemin calls, turning around and stretching his arms out for a hug. Jeno obliges him, leaning in for the embrace while wrinkling his nose like a slightly disgruntled cat. Donghyuck covers a laugh at the sight. "Jeno, Jeno, how were the tests?"

"Alright," Jeno replies, stepping out of the hug and taking a seat across from the two of them. "It was kinda rushed, but I had the full thirty minutes for math, so whatever."

"You probably did well either way," Donghyuck says, trying not to sound too envious. It must work, because Jeno merely smiles at him. The full force of it, directed at him, is kind of like being sucker-punched in the gut in a good way.

"No, you," Jeno shoots back. He slumps back in his seat with a sigh. "Ugh, at this point I'm more worried about districts, honestly."

“Districts?” Hyunjin, sitting at the other table, calls over, face impassive. Donghyuck distinctly remembers her violin solo during a school assembly in freshman year. “What’s that? I don’t know what a district is. I don’t know how to play the violin.”

“How about we don’t talk about that shitfest?” Mark asks. He stands, holding up a deck of cards. “You guys down to play?”

As soon as Donghyuck sees the cards, he’s a goner. “Hell, yeah,” he replies, shutting the lid of his laptop with a definitive click.

“What game?” Jeno asks, looking back and forth between the two of them curiously.

“Slapjack.” Mark grins, placing the deck of cards on the table and taking a seat directly across from Donghyuck. “I’ve been wanting a rematch since August, Hyuck.”

“Not sure why you even bother,” Donghyuck shoots back, grinning. “No point in a rematch if the end result’s still the same, right?” Screw Acadec—if there’s one thing he knows he’s good at, it’s Slapjack.

“Are you two gonna play?” Mark asks Jeno and Jaemin. Jaemin’s got his airpods out for good, head propped up in his hands as his eyes watch intently. Jeno just looks puzzled.

Jaemin shakes his head furiously. “I don’t have a death wish—unlike you, Mark.”

Mark splutters weakly, then turns to Jeno. “What about you?”

“Uh…” Jeno hesitates, then shakes his head. “Maybe next round, though?”

"Alright, then," Donghyuck says, rubbing his hands together in excitement. "It's on."

There's something about Slapjack that just feels like a match to gasoline, something thrilling in such a mundane card game. Mark flips over a card, he flips over a card, Mark goes again—and then Donghyuck goes in for the kill, slapping down on the jack of hearts. Again, and again, and _again_ , Donghyuck wins the pile, until finally Mark gives up and starts slapping on nearly every other card, hyperactive and sensitive like an deer afraid of its own shadow.

"Damn," Jaemin notes, once Mark has run out of cards. "I think that went better than last time."

Mark shrugs good-naturedly. "Hey, I got three slaps in," he says. "I'm pretty proud of myself."

"Can I play?" Jeno asks. He's staring intently at the deck of cards like they're hiding some mystery within them.

"Sure," Donghyuck agrees. He's kind of itching to beat Jeno at something, really, especially given that the Awards Ceremony casts a shadow upon everything like a looming threat. Playing cards and all is fun, but it might be Donghyuck's last chance to play it with Mark and Jaemin, if he doesn't make the team.

Donghyuck starts off a little slow, a little easier. If Mark had been playing against him, he would've been able to win fifty percent of the cards as opposed to five. But Jeno is a whole other category of Slapjack player: sometimes, he doesn't even slap, staring confusedly down at Donghyuck's hand when it hits the table; other times, he'll be as fast as lightning, making Donghyuck feel like late, late thunder when he slams his hand down on top of Jeno's.

"This is fun," Jeno says, when Donghyuck finally manages to beat him. He stares down at his hands, which are bright red from getting slapped. "Kinda numbing, but fun."

"Yeah," Donghyuck agrees. They smile at each other for a moment, before he remembers that this is _Jeno Lee_ and there's the possibility that Jeno might oust him from the Academic Decathlon team. Then, then, he turns away and sits down at his laptop again, motions robotic as he tries to think of anything besides the Awards Ceremony to come.

+++

Donghyuck isn't going to lie: the Awards Ceremony for Academic Decathlon is always boring. It's boring if you win things, and it's even more boring to be left bereft in the audience as reams of names are called. See, the organizers always announce the top-five placings, and it’s based off a multiple choice test—so, inevitably, there are ties upon ties.

As always, their high school dominates the entire ceremony, the name of it reverberating throughout the auditorium nearly the entire time. It’s the most apparent in the C division, where Jisung, Chenle, and Ryujin shuffle between the top three placings in nearly every event. The only serious competitors from other schools reside in the A division, but even then there aren’t many.

With every placing called, Donghyuck focuses on his placings in relation to Jeno’s. Donghyuck wins Art and Music, and beats Jeno in Literature too. But Jeno also gets a _perfect score_ on the Mathematics test, and Donghyuck receives a measly third place in that event.

“Wait a sec,” Jaemin whispers to him, while they’re announcing the Social Science awards. “Dude, Mark’s only been called up, like, twice.”

Donghyuck looks over to Mark sitting in the audience, and sure enough, he has two ribbons looped around his hand. Donghyuck has six cradled around his left wrist.

“Did Mark _tank_?” Donghyuck asks incredulously. “No fuckin’ way.”

“And third place in Social Science, scholastic division, is…” the announcer pauses. “Jaemin Na!”

“Hey, I’ll take it,” Jaemin says, smiling as he walks across the stage to receive his ribbon. He gives a thumbs up to Donghyuck as soon as he’s made his way back over to the audience.

Donghyuck looks over at Jeno as the announcer proceeds through the rest of the B div placings. “Dude, do you think Mark’ll make?”

“I don’t know,” Jeno replies, biting down on his lower lip. “He was doing really well in testing, but—”

“We’ll see,” Donghyuck says. Suddenly, yesterday’s events seem as if they occurred years ago. It’s hard to remember Jeno’s mild anger, the sly way that Jaemin had called him, when the two of them stand together in anticipation of their awards. “Good luck.”

Jeno raises his eyebrows, evidently surprised. “You too.”

After the Social Science awards, all that the organizers have to announce is the overall top scorers and team awards. No one’s particularly nervous for the team award, of course; their team has won the state championship for the past ten years straight, and last year they had a margin of at least twelve thousand points out of a possible sixty thousand. The individual awards are where the real bloodbath lies.

Yerim squeezes his hand as they wait for the A division top scorers to be announced. Jaemin had won the Scholastic/B division, Heejin coming in second place right behind him; Chenle had beat Jisung in the C division by only 60 points, which is the equivalent of three test questions.

“Don’t be worried,” Yerim tells him. “You did really well, okay?”

Maybe Donghyuck did do well, but there’s something _vulnerable_ about trying this hard, about putting so much effort into all of this. If he misses a day of school and Jeno _still_ beats him, everything is futile.

Mark is the first to be called up, placing seventh among the Honors/A division. Then the announcer goes through sixth, fifth, fourth place without naming anyone from their high school. Donghyuck holds onto Yerim’s hand so hard that it _hurts_ , and—

“For third place, in the Honors division, we have Yerim Kim!” the announcer calls.

Donghyuck watches silently as Yerim walks across the stage, smiling as she received her ribbon. Then he looks over at Jeno. He imagines they must have mirrored expressions on their faces, all apprehension and anxiety.

“And with a score just _twenty points_ short of our top scorer…” she pauses. Donghyuck can feel his heartbeat, like a state of being more than a sensation, his body thrumming with it as if he was listening the bass drop on his Bose speakers. “Second place in the Honors division goes to Jeno Lee!”

Fuck. _Fuck_. “Congrats,” Donghyuck says, patting Jeno’s shoulder. He doesn’t respond before walking up onto the stage, but he smiles out to the audience as he receives his ribbon.

“And now for our top scorer in the Honors division,” the announcer says. “With a score of 5680, Donghyuck Lee!”

Donghyuck did it. He _won_ the damn November meet. His cheeks start to hurt from how hard he’s smiling, and everything from there seems to melt into a heady rush. He only starts to snap out of it when he’s standing next to Mark during the team photo.

“Hey, you alright?” Donghyuck asks, patting Mark’s shoulder. Mark is arguably the strongest member on their team—he had been last year, at least—and it was nothing short of a shock to see that he had dropped so many points, even compared to the team selection tests taken over the fall.

“What d’you mean?” Mark replies, mouth frozen in a smile, eyes focused on the camera. As soon as the shutter clicks, he turns towards Donghyuck. “Dude, it’s chill. I’m not that worried about this.”

“Did you study?” Donghyuck says, before he can help himself. Because he’s been seriously wondering about that one.

Mark tilts his head. “Honestly?” he says. “No, not really.” He sighs. “Don’t give me that _look_ , Hyuck, I’ll explain it to the whole team later.”

“Promise?” Donghyuck asks.

“Yeah, of course.”

+++

At the end of the day, Jeno and Donghyuck are the last ones waiting to be picked up in front of the high school. Mr. Nakamoto stands a safe distance away, out of earshot, answering a call with a murmured mix of Japanese and English.

Donghyuck shivers, despite himself. The sky is a murky sort of dark grey, the only form of illumination coming from the distant street lights and Mr. Nakamoto’s phone.

“What’s going to happen now?” Jeno asks. He shoves his hands into his pockets, looking out into the distance.

Mark had ended up telling them that he was dropping out of the Acadec team on the bus-ride back. As the rest of the team cheered, Jeno had turned in his seat to make eye contact with Donghyuck, two rows down. He still doesn’t know what Jeno was looking at him for.

“The team is always announced over Thanksgiving,” Donghyuck says, pulling the top of his sweater over his chin to shield himself from the cold. “If that’s what you mean.” It works, somewhat, but ultimately only makes him more aware of the freezing air between his skin and the sweater.

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck tries. “For missing sch—”

“It’s fine,” Jeno interrupts, more earnest than Donghyuck could ever be. Even in the dark—everything’s easier in the dark—Donghyuck still hesitates over everything. “Seriously, you deserved it.”

“You did well, too,” Donghyuck replies. “Like, seriously, you were only a question off of me, what the hell.”

There’s a pause as Jeno takes a couple of steps forward, coming closer and closer to Donghyuck. “We’ll make it, won’t we,” Jeno replies. “Both of us.”

Donghyuck laughs, startled. “Well, who _else_ —” he breaks off, shaking his head. “Well, we’ll probably be teammates now.”

“Probably?” Jeno runs his foot over the sidewalk, crushing bits of gravel deliberately. “Definitely, then.”

An unfamiliar car drives closer, in the distance, and as it pulls up to the school the headlights illuminate Jeno’s face. He’s smiling, almost sheepish, with one hand clasped around the back of his neck.

“Good night,” Jeno calls, turning back to look at Donghyuck as he opens the car door. There's something there, wordless, pulsing through the air with a soundless rhythm. Maybe it's just Donghyuck's frenetic heartbeat.

“Bye,” Donghyuck replies. By then, Jeno’s already seated in the car—oblivious to anything Donghyuck says, protected by a closed door. In the darkness, Donghyuck continues to wait.


	3. pareto efficiency

A day later, on Sunday night, Mr. Nakamoto sends them all an email:

_Hi Team,_

_We have our upcoming regional tournament on February 2nd, little over two months away. Please rest and relax over Thanksgiving break; you deserve it! Our final roster for the February 2nd meet is based on the following criteria:_

_1) individual scores on the practice tests prior to the November meet  
2) individual scores at the November meet_

_Honors_  
1) Donghyuck Lee  
2) Jeno Lee  
3) Yerim Kim (Captain) 

_Scholastic_  
1) Jaemin Na  
2) Heejin Jeon  
3) Hyunjin Kim 

_Varsity_  
1) Chenle Zhong  
2) Jisung Park 

_Please be ready to meet the week after Thanksgiving break. I’m looking forward to this year!_

_From,  
Coach Nakamoto_

Almost immediately, his phone starts beeping with notifications. Donghyuck glances at his lock screen without opening it; Jaemin has already created a Messenger group chat for the Acadec team, appropriately titled _WACADEC!!!_ and Jeno has sent a message to him too. 

Donghyuck heaves a sigh of relief. Then, he unlocks his phone to go onto Messenger—not for the group chat, which has already started to accumulate an alarming number of messages, but to text Jeno. 

_You waved at Jeno Lee!_  
 **Donghyuck Lee:** You were right haha  
 **Jeno Lee:** :D

+++

“Alright, guys,” Mr. Nakamoto says, clearing his throat to gain everyone’s attention. Donghyuck leans back from where he had been whispering with Jeno, his neck burning at the thought of Mr. Nakamoto calling him out. Jaemin catches his eye, smirking, and Donghyuck sticks out his tongue in response. “Everyone listening?”

Mr. Nakamoto pauses for a moment, then continues. “We _crushed_ it at the November meet, but now it’s time to shift our gears towards the subjectives. Our foremost priority for the next two months will be speech, which consists of both an impromptu speech and a prepared speech.”

And, now, it’s not like Donghyuck was _staring_ at Jeno the entire time or anything. But as soon as Mr. Nakamoto says the word _speech_ Jeno’s face turns chalk-white, witless with fear. 

Jaemin leans forward to whisper into Jeno’s ear from behind, and Donghyuck leans toward the two of them to overhear, their whispers blending in with Mr. Nakamoto’s explanations.

“Are you okay?” Jaemin asks. 

“... need to send me a speech, have it be around one page, Times New Roman…”

Jeno’s eyebrows furrow, and he shakes his head. “I’m terrible at this stuff.”

“... impromptu has to be around a minute and a half to two minutes, otherwise you’ll incur _massive_ time penalties…”

Donghyuck can’t catch what Jaemin whispers in response to Jeno, and Mr. Nakamoto’s looking at him like he can stare into the depths of Donghyuck’s mind, so he stops trying to eavesdrop. 

“Why don’t we start with the impromptu practice right now?” Mr. Nakamoto suggests. “We’ll go by seniority, just so that the newer members get a feel for what this is supposed to look like.” He rummages through a desk drawer before emerging with a small box of cards. “Yerim, you’re first.”

As expected, Yerim is _good_ at extemporaneous speaking. She’s a picture of concentration during her allotted thirty seconds to brainstorm; afterwards, she stands up straight and delivers a decent speech on “her favorite book, and what message it taught her.”

Mr. Nakamoto nods with approval after she finishes. “Your timing was right on the dot,” he says. “A minute and forty-five seconds, exactly what we’re aiming for.”

Donghyuck manages to get through most of his speech decently, even if he blanks for a couple of seconds while arguing what improvements should be made to America’s educational system. 

Mr. Nakamoto seems satisfied, at least: “even when you had a blip, you managed to keep going. Good work.”

Then, finally, it’s time for the newcomers to give their impromptu speeches. First up is Jeno, whose hands visibly shake as he looks over the prompt cards. 

“My favorite memory,” Jeno begins, a little quiet, “was when…” 

To put it kindly, it’s a trainwreck and a half. Not the content itself—Jeno is perfectly eloquent—but the delivery is shaky and quiet like his voice had been replaced by radio static. There’s an awkward, fifteen second pause, during which Jeno looks out at the audience like he’s pleading for help. It’s hard to watch. 

“Okay,” Mr. Nakamoto says, once Jeno stumbles his way to the end of the speech. “That was… a pretty good example of what _not_ to do.” Donghyuck can _feel_ the collective wince that passes over the entire team. Jeno, to his credit, just nods in agreement with a blank expression. “It started off pretty well, Jeno, but then once you blanked you just— _completely_ lost it, and it ended around thirty seconds over the time limit.”

“Let this be a teaching moment,” Mr. Nakamoto continues. “Even if you have no idea what to say, you have to keep the words coming out of your mouth until you pass the minimum time threshold. Otherwise, the judges will think that you’re done with your speech.” He sighs. “Jeno, nice effort.”

Jeno’s face remains impassive for the rest of the meeting, almost disconcertingly expressionless. Jaemin catches Donghyuck’s eye while he’s staring and mouths _we need to help him_. Donghyuck nods, looking away from them. It isn’t even for Jeno’s sake, Donghyuck justifies. Honestly, having Jeno speak like that would ruin the overall score. Helping him would just be good for the entire team, right? 

Oh, who the hell is he kidding. Donghyuck wants to help him because he _wants_ to, as simple as that. 

Jaemin and Donghyuck walk along Jeno, sandwiched on each side, as they leave the meeting. 

“You okay?” Donghyuck asks, trying to sound lighthearted. He reaches out to poke Jeno’s cheek. “Damn, I didn’t know you had such a strong resting bitch face.”

Jeno bats away Donghyuck’s hand but a burgeoning smile blooms across his face. “How the hell am I supposed to do the _speech_?” Jeno wonders. “Like, seriously, I’m obviously ass at impromptu—”

“—You’ll get better with practice,” Jaemin interrupts. “I swear—”

“—Not to mention the prepared speech,” Jeno continues, glum. “I can’t—”

“You can,” Donghyuck says, bracing. They stop walking where they are, in the middle of the hallway between the library and the ELA wing. “We’ll _help_ you, Jeno Lee, so that you can.”

Jeno’s speechless for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth between Jaemin and Donghyuck’s expectant faces. Something in his expression shifts, and all the tension seems to bleed out of him like the air escaping from a balloon. 

“Okay,” Jeno says.

+++

Donghyuck stops the timer with a loud beep, Jeno flinching as he does so. "Your impromptu speech was a minute and fifty seconds," Donghyuck says. "Good timing." He turns to look at Renjun and Jaemin. "What did you guys think?"

For the past couple of weeks, after Acadec practice, they've been drilling Jeno on his impromptu speech skills. Renjun's pretty good at suggesting topics, and Jaemin's the best public speaker out of the four of them. Donghyuck's just—decent emotional support, he supposes.

"Uh..." Renjun tilts his head, deep in thought. "Honestly, your body language is kinda off? Like you keep slouching while you speak."

Automatically, Jeno straightens his posture, instantly regaining three inches of height. He's probably around Jaemin's height—they're all pretty close in height, besides Renjun—but Jeno has this habit of shrinking into himself to seem smaller that makes him look a lot shorter.

"Yeah, that's good," Jaemin says. "Now you look confident."

"What about the actual speech?" Jeno asks. "I kinda blanked during the second point, but..." He shrugs.

Donghyuck nods. "It wasn't really that obvious," he says. "You kept on going, and that's the most important."

Jeno smiles at that, bright and enthusiastic like a puppy chasing after a stick. It's cute.

Now, Donghyuck and Renjun's after-school routine has expanded to include Jaemin and Jeno in the mix. As Jaemin and Renjun argue over their AP Chem homework—really, Donghyuck is so glad to _not_ take that class this year, being a biology kid through and through—he looks over to the other side of him. Jeno's busy at work, headphones in as he highlights a passage for history.

"Hey," Donghyuck whispers, poking Jeno's shoulder.

Jeno blinks back at him blankly before registering Donghyuck and removing his headphones. "Yeah?" he says.

"You've gotten a lot better," Donghyuck replies, feeling awkward at having to be so genuine. There's nothing more vulnerable, more uncomfortably honest, than saying how you really feel. "Like, for real."

Jeno smiles down at the table. "Thanks," he replies. "I'm—not that afraid of it, anymore. Now I just have the prepared speech to memorize, right?"

"Yeah," Donghyuck says. "Have you finished writing it?" Donghyuck had just adopted a personal narrative he wrote last year for English class—something trite about the freak accident in which his dog ate his hamster, and then died—and sent it off to Mr. Nakamoto without thinking much of it. Mr. Nakamoto, being one of the best English teachers in the school, edits the speeches for diction and clarity regardless.

Jeno presses his lips together as if unsure what to say in response. "Yes," he replies, after a long pause. "But I'm not sure it's good."

Donghyuck shrugs. "As long as Mr. Nakamoto can edit it, it'll be fine," he says. "Legit, it can't be that bad. Can I read it?"

Jeno shakes his head rapidly that one might have thought that Donghyuck asked him to kill his best friend. "No," Jeno says. "It's— _bad_."

"Alright, suit yourself." Donghyuck tries to not feel too hurt. Maybe the speech is really personal, or something. "But we're going to start practicing those, too, and Nakamoto usually makes us recite the speech verbatim to the rest of the team, just to make us get used to delivering it."

"That'll be _after_ Mr. Nakamoto's done editing it, right?" Jeno asks. He's gripping onto his pencil so hard, knuckles white, that Donghyuck's afraid that Jeno will snap it in half.

"Yeah," Donghyuck says, reassuring. He reaches out to pat Jeno's shoulder, surprised by the warmth of it underneath his palm. "Don't worry, okay?"

+++

As it turns out, Jeno has absolutely _nothing_ to worry about. At the beginning of next week's practice, Mr. Nakamoto hands out their edited speeches.

"Now we have to get started on memorizing the prepared speeches," Mr. Nakamoto says. "Why don't we have everyone read their speech out loud to the rest of the team, just to see how it flows on the tongue?"

This time, Mr. Nakamoto goes by order of team number, which means that Donghyuck is the first to deliver his speech. It's mostly uneventful. Everyone laughs at his jokes, which is nice, and Jeno looks appropriately horrified when Donghyuck mentions how his dog consumed the hamster.

Then, it's Jeno's time to deliver his speech. His hands don't tremble as he grasps the paper in front of him, and instead of looking nervous Jeno seems calm and collected.

"My name is Jeno Lee," he reads from the paper. "I am many things. A son. A proud owner of three cats. A decathlete. A soccer player. And a homosexual."

Donghyuck hears a gasp from behind him, and to be honest, he can't help but feel surprised as well. Not that Jeno's gay—everyone and their grandmother has known that since freshman year of high school, and it's not something people really talk about that much—but that he has the guts to address his own _coming out_ in a speech like this. Donghyuck's pretty open about his own sexuality, but this—this is a whole other level of vulnerability, and one that he isn't sure he would be able to bear the way Jeno is.

"...I had so many fears," Jeno says. "I wondered if my parents would accept me. Or if my friends would be okay with who I was. But, ultimately, I was fortunate to always have their trust and support. For they made me who I am today—"

_A son. A brother. A decathlete._ Something about the speech strikes a chord very deep within Donghyuck, and he can't help it—he wipes away a tear or two. Looking around, Donghyuck sees Jaemin with his head in his hands, Heejin with her hand over her mouth, and Mr. Nakamoto himself, dabbing at his eyes with a napkin.

"Now this speech," Mr. Nakamoto declares at the end of it, "could win Nationals." Mr. Nakamoto isn't the type of person to make outright predictions like that, most of the time, for fear of putting on too much pressure.

Jeno blinks. "Really?" he asks, incredulous.

"It all depends on your delivery," Mr. Nakamoto says. "In truth, the judges aren't allowed to grade based on the content of your speech at all. But a story like this—it sways sympathies greatly."

Before Jeno returns back to his seat, Mr. Nakamoto steps forward to give him a high-five. "Great improvement with regards to public speaking," he says. "Keep the momentum going."

+++

December break is usually one of Donghyuck's favorite times of the year. Granted, he's always been more of a summer kind of guy—he's literally born in June, even if it was before the summer solstice—but something about the holiday spirit makes him appreciate winter more. Not that there's much of a winter, during December, besides a one-inch layer of snow ("Snowdaycalculator.com says that there's a three-percent chance of having no school," Jeno told him at school the day before the "storm." "Think the bio project will get postponed?").

This year is a whole other level of hell, though. His parents have been on his case for a while about colleges—as if Donghyuck has any _idea_ where he wants to go, really—and decide that this winter break is the best time to drive around visiting every college in the Northeast.

Okay, not every college, but given Donghyuck's parents it skews towards the Ivies more often than he'd like. It's boring, but more than that, it's miserable to trudge along paths of elitist institutions during frigid weather. He can only tolerate hearing about how a campus resembles Hogwarts— _seriously_ —for so many times.

Donghyuck ends up spending most of the college tours taking pictures of random shit and spamming either Renjun or Jeno. Renjun soon gets tired of it though— _send me one more pic of a crusty gargoyle and i'll block u_ , says one of Renjun's most recent messages—and, well. Jeno's a lot more patient, along with providing pretty hilarious commentary, even if he's sometimes a shitty texter.

_You changed Jeno Lee's nickname to Jenooooo_  
 _You changed your nickname to Donghyuckk_  
 **Jenooooo:** :D  
 **Donghyuckk:** I cant wait to get home tbh  
 **Jenooooo:** when r u gettin back  
 **Donghyuckk:** New years eve lmfaoooo  
 **Donghyuckk:** I kid you not were gonna be driving back through all that traffic  
 **Donghyuckk:** Love that for me

+++

It's a pretty bad New Year's, to be spending it in a car instead of his home, but Donghyuck has to admit—seeing Jeno's _happy new year donghyuck!! lets beat every1 in acadec lel_ in his notifications is a dopamine rush like nothing else.

+++

Soon enough, two things approach Donghyuck like a freight train: midyears, and the upcoming regional meet.

"I can't believe there's only a week between midyears and the February meet," Donghyuck complains. He's staring down at the Art packet, trying his best to understand how lithographies work. Art is one of his better subjects, but there are still some weak spots left to fill by the time he hits the February meet.

"Yeah, it's wack," Jeno replies. He's flipping through the pages of the Science packet so swiftly that Donghyuck is afraid he'll get paper cuts.

It's two weeks before midyears, but the Essay is always completed a couple of weeks before the competition to allow time for grading. This means that, on top of midyears, Donghyuck has to know enough material to be able to write an essay on one of the objective subjects. Usually the state decathlon organization tries to include mostly humanities prompts, but they need to be prepared for anything, including being able to write a five-paragraph essay on Rayleigh scattering (It happened last year, at least). Does it make sense? No. Is it Acadec? Yes, and therefore he'll do it.

Renjun hums. "I wish you guys were studying for midyears," he says. "Fucking AP Chem—"

"I don't take Chem," Donghyuck and Jeno say in unison.

Jeno grins at Donghyuck. "Jinx," he says, still smiling as if he's discovered the funniest joke ever with that one.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. "Alright, Jeno," he replies, returning the smile in spite of himself. "Like we're still in elementary school."

Jeno pouts at that. He's been doing a lot of that, nowadays. Pouting, that is. The weather's been starting to get a lot colder, on top of that—the New England winters always kick in a month late, thanks to climate change—and Jeno keeps wearing these oversized fuzzy sweaters with long sleeves that cover his hands, and—well. Donghyuck might find it a _bit_ cute.

It's becoming more and more of a problem, but Donghyuck doesn't try to dwell on it. Not when there's school and Acadec and fucking college apps to think about. So instead he shoves the problem all the way down to the basement, avoids making eye contact with Jeno for too long, and pretends that nothing is amiss. It's fine.

+++

Except it isn't fine, apparently, because Renjun catches on. "You two seem close," he comments at lunch, taking a sip of his hot chocolate. He doesn't spit it out. Renjun must have some sort of deal with Lucas, too, because for the past couple of weeks he's been dropping off salted caramel hot chocolate for Renjun along with Donghyuck's usual order.

"I seem close with who?" Donghyuck asks nervously. He knows who. Everyone knows who. There's only one possibility as for _who_ : if you look at Donghyuck's messenger, the top most people are A) Renjun (of course), B) Jeno, and C) the WACADEC!! group chat, which Chenle and Jisung spam with games of 8 ball pool.

"Jeno, obviously," Renjun says. When Donghyuck doesn't respond, he gives him a look. "Come on, you weren't even trying to hide it. You keep on listening to that Spotify playlist with only Carly Rae Jepsen songs—"

"Wait a second," Donghyuck interrupts. Fuck, he really needs to put his Spotify playlists on private. "There's being close to someone, and there's having a crush on someone, and you just implied that one of those things was the other."

Renjun returns his gaze evenly. "No, I didn't," he replies. "But, hey, you were the one to say it yourself. You _have a crush_ on Jeno Lee." Renjun speaks with way too much conviction for just a guess, as if he's trying hyponotize Donghyuck into believing it himself. As Jeno would say: _wack_.

"I do _not_ ," Donghyuck says, affronted. "He's my biggest rival in Acadec—"

"Lay off of the enemies schtick," Renjun says. "You haven't been in direct contention with him since the November meet, and you know it."

Donghyuck avoids Renjun's eyes. "I," Donghyuck forces out, "am _not_ gonna talk about this." It's three days before his first midyear exam, and then after midyears, he has a week to cram for the regional meet. The best thing Donghyuck can do, at this point, is keep looping "Boy Problems" the way he's been doing for the past week or so.

Renjun shrugs. "Alright," he says. "I mean, I'll be here if you want to talk about it?"

"Yeah, of course," Donghyuck replies. He looks back down at his Calc notes and wonders just how everything escalated this quickly.

+++

Everyone’s sleepy on the morning of the regional meet, but Donghyuck is soon startled to full alertness by the sight of Jeno Lee in a suit. Donghyuck knows that it’s required competition attire for all of the decathletes—hell, Donghyuck spent a couple of minutes this morning trying to finagle his tie in front of a mirror—but. Fuck. It’s going to be pretty damn hard to hide his not-crush on Jeno Lee if he keeps gaping at Jeno the entire time.

But boy, does Jeno deserve to be looked at. Donghyuck just wishes he was more well-rested in order to take everything in.

"Can I sit with you?" Jeno asks, pausing at his seat. Donghyuck nods, automatically scooting over to make room for Jeno and his large backpack. "Damn, it's kinda cold."

"You think?" Donghyuck replies, chin propped on top of his backpack. He's wearing a thick coat over his suit, and he's still feeling only lukewarm. Jeno, in the meanwhile, doesn't have any coat to be seen. "Did you seriously not bring a jacket?"

Jeno nods as the bus roars to life. With Jeno on, the whole team is present. Chenle and Jisung are sharing headphones, all the way in the back of the bus; Jaemin's slumped against the window in front of Donghyuck; and Heejin's got her head resting on Hyunjin's shoulder in the seat next to Jaemin. Up front, Yeri's deep in conversation with Mr. Nakamoto.

Jeno keeps shivering. It's honestly uncomfortable to even _look_ at.

"Come here," Donghyuck mumbles. "I'll quiz you on Social Science."

Jeno moves closer hesitantly until their thighs are touching. Donghyuck moves his foot so that it knocks against the side of Jeno's dress shoes.

"Alright, what groups were part of the New Deal coalition?" Donghyuck asks quietly.

Jeno closes his eyes, mimicking Donghyuck's position as he rests his head on the backpack in his lap. "Uh, northern African-Americans... Southern Democrats..." Eventually, Jeno trails off until Donghyuck realizes that he has fallen asleep.

Donghyuck pokes Jeno's cheek. "How late did you stay up?" he asks. Jeno must really be asleep, for he doesn't answer. Donghyuck had went to bed at midnight, as per Mr. Nakamoto's instructions; he never recommended sleeping any later on competition nights. Jaemin always pulls all-nighters before a competition, though, and it turns out fine, so Donghyuck isn't entirely sure how accurate Mr. Nakamoto's advice is. He always assumed that Jeno would be the type to fall asleep at 10 pm the night before a meet, though.

Most of the tournament is similar to the November meet, though the schedule has a few more breaks in it. The only part that's different—and possibly frightening—are the subjective subjects.

He, Jeno, and Yerim are all lined up behind the same door to present their speeches, now. Jeno keeps pacing back and forth, the soles of his shoes clacking against the floor. At his fourteenth time going around the hall, Donghyuck grabs his arm and tugs him close.

"Calm down," Donghyuck says. "Just looking at you is making _me_ nervous. Come on, take a couple of deep breaths."

Jeno eyes him incredulously, but Donghyuck gestures for him to do so. Donghyuck can visibly see him calm down with each inhale and exhale, and by the time it's Donghyuck's turn to deliver his speech, Jeno seems pretty close to his normal self.

And, well, the prepared speech goes swimmingly. The impromptu is a little dicey—for the prompt "Which word would you add to the dictionary?" Donghyuck choses the word _yeet_ , but he isn't entirely sure whether the elderly judges even know what he's talking about—but he makes it through within the time limit, which is good enough for him.

When he steps out of the room, Jeno goes to him immediately. "How did it go?" Jeno asks. "Was it hard?"

Donghyuck shakes his head. "Relax, Jeno," he says. "You'll be fine, okay?"

Jeno bites down on his bottom lip, unsure. "Really?"

"Really," Donghyuck confirms, reaching out to grasp Jeno's shoulder reassuringly before he leaves.

The last event, Interview, is generally a piece of cake for him—Donghyuck isn't the _best_ at being eloquent and articulate, but the Acadec Interview questions are so vague that he isn't worried at all—so now there's a burden off of his shoulders once he has finished Speech. Ninety-percent of the tournament is already in the bag, so to speak.

The Awards Ceremony has none of the high-stakes, roiling intensity that Donghyuck felt so acutely during the November meet. All of them are aware that the regional meet is just a warm up for the state tournament in the next month. Hell, they're only facing off against six other teams, and none of them are any good.

Still, it does sting a _bit_ when Donghyuck is announced as the third overall scorer, Jeno in second and Yerim getting first. When they pore over the results on the bus ride back home, Donghyuck shining his phone's flashlight down onto the rows of numbers in order to read with the lack of light, Donghyuck realizes that he was only separated from Jeno by five points.

"Damn," Jeno says when he notices. "That isn't even an entire question, holy fuck."

"I'll get you next time," Donghyuck replies. They truly are neck and neck, huh.

As for Yerim, well, her aggregate score is a whole two hundred points higher than Jeno.

"Don't be surprised," Donghyuck says. "Now that college applications are over for her, she's going to be out for _blood_."

Jeno shakes his head in awe. "That's _commitment_ ," he says. "Most seniors are sliding their ass off right now."

" _Mark Lee_ ," Donghyuck mutters under his breath.

Jeno takes the results paper from Donghyuck and studies it again, mouth pursed in thought.

"Do you think we can get to 9000 by the next meet?" Jeno asks.

"In overall individual score?" Donghyuck replies. If this was a sitcom, he'd be spitting out his drink into Jeno's face right now. As it is, all he can do is blink slowly at Jeno to convey his sense of disbelief. "Are you trolling right now, or what?"

"For real," Jeno says. Academic Decathlon has ten subjects, each of them worth a thousand points—including the dreaded Speech and Essay portions. Getting above nine thousand for an overall score would require scoring above ninety percent in every subject. At that moment, getting an A-minus never seemed harder.

But it's Jeno, and Donghyuck doesn't want to be too mean, so instead he replies with: "Maybe we should try to aim to break eighty-five hundred first, alright."

Jeno nods. "Deal," he promises.

Donghyuck takes back the paper to look at their scores again. The two of them had scored in the low eight-thousands—Donghyuck had clocked in at an 8104.79—whereas Yerim obtained an 8312.63. Breaking nine-thousand is crazy, but surpassing 8500? Maybe, just _maybe_ , that could be doable.


	4. softly, softly

Here's what Donghyuck does after the February meet:

1\. Catch up on all the classes he slacked off in while studying for Acadec in order to maintain his GPA in order to stay on the Acadec team. Renjun tried to cover for him as best as he could, but with the musical premiering next week there was only so much he could do.  
2\. Sleep for more than five hours per night for an entire _week_ , more of an indulgence than Donghyuck has afforded since December break.  
3\. Try to not think about you-know-who.

Of course, Jeno himself ends up interfering with point number three. A couple of days after the February meet, Jeno intercepts him in between one of his classes.

"Hey, Donghyuck," Jeno says, sounding a little different than normal. He's wringing his hands together, eyes avoiding Donghyuck's face. Weird.

"Yeah?" Donghyuck replies. True to point number one, Donghyuck has his mind focused on school, still mulling over the quiz he took last period. He keeps forgetting how to conjugate subjunctive properly, and it's annoying.

"I was wondering if you would, uh," Jeno starts. "Um. Watch the musical with me?"

Donghyuck blinks at Jeno. _Watch the musical?_ Never mind that Donghyuck has already bought tickets using Renjun's pre-order code ("If you don't come to see me perform," Renjun had said, entirely serious, "I'll be _sad_."). Does Jeno mean it as a date? As friends? As a not-date but also as not-friends?

Jeno just seems to get more and more flustered with the passing seconds. "Uh, Jaemin's gonna come too?" Jeno says, mouth pursing around that uncertainty. He frowns.

Oh. So Jeno just wanted to hang out as friends. Donghyuck shouldn't be feeling disappointed, because that would imply having some sort of other expectation in the first place. Honestly, hanging out is also pretty fun, especially if Jaemin will also be there to mess around with.

"Yeah, of course," Donghyuck replies, surprised when a smile comes to him genuinely. "I'm really looking forward to it."

+++

“I don’t think Jaemin’s going to show up,” Jeno tells him on Saturday night, while they’re in line to enter the auditorium. Jeno’s frowning, but he doesn’t look all that sorry. Or maybe that’s just Donghyuck projecting his glee at being alone with Jeno— _alone with Jeno_ —for a whole two hours onto him.

“Oh,” Donghyuck says. “Wait, why?”

Jeno shrugs, shifting his gaze away from Donghyuck’s face. It feels deliberate. “He said he already had plans with Hyunjin and Heejin. Can you believe that?”

“Damn, that B div bond,” Donghyuck remarks. “Maybe we should’ve asked Yerim to come along or something.”

“I don’t think it’s team bonding,” Jeno says, raising his eyebrows. “It’s _another_ type of bonding, if you get what I mean.”

Donghyuck doesn’t get it at first, but when he does it makes almost perfect sense. “Leave it to him to go after not one, but _two_ girls,” he says, shaking his head. “If there’s anyone _that_ ambitious, it’s Jaemin Na.”

The musical, which is their high school’s take on _The Little Mermaid_ , is pretty damn ambitious as well. Donghyuck doesn’t recognize everyone under the colorful stage makeup, but it’s pretty easy to distinguish Kunhang as Prince Eric and he’s already been trained to spot Renjun as Sebastian. 

Jeno must have not known, though, for he visibly startles when Renjun-as-Sebastian begins to deliver his lines. 

“Holy shit,” Jeno whispers, lips unnecessarily close to Donghyuck’s ear. Not that he’s complaining, or anything, but he’s definitely struggling in the flames of hell. “Shit, is that _Renjun_?”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck replies. He doesn’t take his eyes off the stage. He’s too afraid of being distracted by what he’ll see. 

Yet, in the periphery of his vision: Jeno moves closer, almost imperceptibly, until his knee presses against Donghyuck’s. Donghyuck’s breath is still caught in his throat. But that’s all Jeno does, and Donghyuck can’t even tell if he wants more or _nothing_ more, god damn it. 

But for the most part, the musical is captivating. Their school’s theater program usually wins awards, and Donghyuck can tell why: the sets are well-crafted, the comedic moments hit a rhythm that’s magnetic, and the actors actually know how to _sing_. A part of him wishes he joined that path instead of straddling the middle with his chorus kid/Acadec nerd schtick, but, well. It’s kind of nice to be two things. It’s nice to have met Jeno, and watch the musical with him, regardless of whether he has a crush or not. 

“Damn, that was a nice show,” Jeno remarks. He rubs his eyes as they exit the theater, trying to get used to the amount of light, and it makes him look like a disgruntled cat. Cute. 

“Yeah,” Donghyuck replies. He looks around; people are already starting to flood the lobby, and no doubt Renjun will get mobbed the hell out by people. “Wait, Jeno, come with me.”

“Where are we going?” Jeno asks as Donghyuck leads them through a hallway. They’re heading towards the opposite end of the school where all of the math and science classes are. “The empty hallways are pretty scary at night…”

Donghyuck pulls out his phone to message Renjun. “It’s what we, uh, usually do after a show,” he explains. “Renjun always gets surrounded by the audience on his way out--he’s actually _so_ popular, it’s crazy--so then we meet somewhere else so we can talk.”

“Oh.” Jeno’s silent for a moment, considering. “That’s really sweet.”

“Thanks,” Donghyuck replies. He’s only just starting to realize how _weird_ the atmosphere is. They’re in the middle of an empty high school hallway, for one, and Jeno keeps taking these hesitant peeks at Donghyuck’s face like he’s afraid to look at him full on. There’s this weird undercurrent, too, like they’re waiting for something to _happen_. 

Jeno hums, gaze sweeping over the swath of lockers next to him. “This was really cool,” he says. 

“Yeah,” Donghyuck replies vacantly, eyes tracking the movement of Jeno’s hand as it passes over a couple of lockers. 

Jeno takes a deep, deep breath. “And the reason,” he starts, “that Jaemin didn’t come is—”

“--Oh, _that’s_ where you were,” Renjun interrupts, striding towards them. He’s got stage makeup caked on him but he’s back into his regular clothes, so he kind of looks like—

“Oh, Renjun!” Jeno says. “You kinda look like you got sunburned.”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, opening his arms out for a hug. Renjun hugs him as hard as he can for an almost awkwardly long amount of time, given that Jeno’s watching them the entire time. “You did so well,” he whispers into Renjun’s ear. “ _Actually_ the star of the show. Prince Eric who?”

Renjun laughs quietly into Donghyuck’s shoulder. “Thanks.” He releases Donghyuck from the hug and looks over at Jeno. “What’d you think of it?”

“Honestly?” Jeno asks. “It was so damn good…”

Donghyuck never learns why, exactly, Jaemin didn’t show up to the show today. But by the time he walks out of the school, his heart warm with the memories of Jeno’s smile and Renjun’s laughter, he has forgotten about it all already.

+++

After that night watching Renjun's musical, Donghyuck has to face the facts: the state tournament is coming up on them faster than the spring thaw. The online Essay is to be completed on February 14th--yes, Valentine's Day, of all days--and the competition itself is two weeks after that, in the beginning of March.

So, of course, Donghyuck does what he normally does: he throws himself into the work. Renjun doesn't have to stay after school anymore, now that the musical has finished, and Jaemin is usually too preoccupied with Hyunjin and/or Heejin to stay after, either, so Donghyuck finds himself alone with Jeno after school more often than not.

They settle into an easy routine of speeding through homework--they swap Spanish and AP Bio homework, the easiest classes, and struggle through Calc together with the help of Donghyuck's two-hundred dollar solutions manual--and then taking practice test afterwards. It's nice, but more than that--it's _productive_. Donghyuck has been into guys before, has had flimsy little crushes to talk to Renjun about, but he had never thought it would be worth anything.

With Jeno, everything clicks. Their friendship feels so natural--like breathing, like living--that he almost doesn't want to do anything to change it.

And then there are other times. Times when, if Jeno looks over at him after a practice test with that sparkle in his eyes, happy that they got close to a ninety-percent, Donghyuck is nothing but a fountain of feeling, bubbling and effervescent. He thinks it's a miracle that he hasn't said anything about it, sometimes.

Sure, they're still competing against each other, but it's more than that. It's that feeling of camaraderie, of working towards something bigger than just his own goal. It's the best feeling in the world.

+++

"What did we get on the last Econ test?" Donghyuck asks. He's in the middle of correcting their Art test; Jeno's starting to get better at identifying the materials involved in each composition.

"Uh..." Jeno flips a page. There's the sound of his pen scratching against the paper as he grades the answers. _Check. Check. Check._ It's the only type of ASMR Donghyuck would willingly tolerate. "Holy fuck, let me count how much we got wrong, I think--"

"What?" Donghyuck leans over to glance over Jeno's shoulder. "Did we break nine hundred? For real?"

"Yep," Jeno says, popping the 'p.' "Just counted it--we only got three wrong."

"Oh _hell_ yeah," Donghyuck replies. Then there's this awkward moment where Donghyuck holds his hand up for a high-five and Jeno leans in for a hug--

Then Donghyuck leans in for a hug and Jeno ends up high-fiving the side of Donghyuck's face--

Until they collapse against each other in a fit of laughter, Donghyuck's forehead pressed against Jeno's. People look so different up close. Softer, maybe, and just generally more vulnerable.

If Donghyuck's heart is carbonated fizz, then he feels all shaken up right now. Ready to beat out of his chest, ready to explode like a bomb--

Donghyuck backs away so fast that he nearly falls backward in his seat. He needs to diffuse the situation. He needs to, he needs to--

Jeno's still regarding him with that unfathomable look.

"I can't believe the essay's tomorrow," Donghyuck tries. His hands move over his Acadec supplies, stuttering as they pick up a practice.

"It's Valentine's Day," Jeno says. "Are you doing anything?"

"Besides studying?" Donghyuck asks. "Um, the chorus hands out those singing valentines, but other than that--nothing else, of course."

"Wait, the _chorus_ kids hand out singing valentines?" Jeno replies, voice rising in pitch.

"What did you think?" Donghyuck says. "We literally _sing_ while handing out valentines, it doesn't get much more chorus-y than that."

"I thought it was the theater kids..." Jeno says weakly.

Donghyuck shrugs. "There's enough of an overlap, honestly," he says. "Most chorus kids are theater kids regardless."

"But not you," Jeno points out senselessly.

"But not me," Donghyuck agrees. "Because I do Acadec. Yeah. What's your point?"

"Nothing," Jeno says quickly. "No point. Nothing, actually."

"Okay..." Donghyuck trails off, confused. He decides to not think about it any longer. There's the Essay to do tomorrow, and he'll be missing most of the day while handing out valentines.

+++

There's a bit more of a commotion than usual the next morning when Donghyuck arrives to the chorus room.

"What's the issue?" Donghyuck asks, walking over to where a group of people are hovered around the stacks of valentines. They're sorted by class so that the choir can deliver it properly.

"Nothing," Renjun says quickly. "Just--some kid wanted to retract their valentine, is all. Must have gotten cold feet."

Donghyuck’s mind is too consumed by the possible essay topics--he's really holding out for an Art or Literature prompt--to register much.

He blinks. "Ah, okay," he says, thinking nothing more of it.

+++

With the essay out of the way--Donghyuck having to eke out six painful paragraphs about _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_ and the _meaning of life_ \--he dives head first into the Acadec grind. With every passing day, the two of them improve their accuracy on the practice tests. Their strong subjects become even stronger, while they fill in the gaps in their respective weaker subjects.

The most telling sign, for Donghyuck, that he's starting to spend all of his time solely on Academic Decathlon is his grades. He stops receiving the daily lattes for Lucas, unable to keep up with the Calc homework. He receives his first B-plus of the year on an English assignment and doesn't even feel bad about it; he already knew it was a shitty paper.

In some ways, the state tournament is even more important than the national tournament. At nationals, their team places in the top five most years, but getting a spot among the top five individuals--in the Honors division, at least--is tremendously difficult. In contrast, getting the State title only involves beating two other people who are _real_ competition, and it looks pretty damn good on the resume.

Donghyuck tries not to think about those things, most of the time--doing things for his college applications, as opposed to actually enjoying them--because it makes him feel like the shittiest piece of trash to ever end up in a landfill. But, honestly, when it comes down to it--his applications are pretty important. Damn if he won't at least _try_ to put his best foot forward.

And before he knows it, it's the day of the state competition. The schedule is an exact copy of the regional meet, and it doesn’t feel that stressful when he gets down to it. He’s been taking these same tests all year. He _knows_ this shit, god damn it, and everything’s a little easier the second time around.

“The tests were a lot harder than the regional meet,” Jaemin comments while they eat lunch. 

Donghyuck, in the middle of reading over his speech, blinks up at Jaemin. “Hm?”

“I don’t know, the math test was definitely a lot more challenging, at least,” Jaemin says. “What did you guys think?”

Donghyuck shares a look with Jeno and shrugs. “It felt like… a test,” is all Donghyuck can come up with at this point. He has spent so much time poring over the packets that everything is just question-answer, question-answer at this point. Even the math test hadn’t been difficult or easy. All Donghyuck had the mental space for was going from one question to the next. 

Jaemin whistles, impressed. “You guys were really grinding it out, huh?” he asks, eyes wide and interested. “Do you think you can beat Yerim?”

Donghyuck looks over to the other table--where Yerim, Heejin, and Hyunjin sit, clustered together around Heejin’s computer--and sighs. “It’s _Yerim_ ,” he says. “Who the hell knows?”

“Yes,” Jeno says, definitive. “We definitely can.”

“Thank you for having faith in me,” Donghyuck replies, batting his eyelashes at Jeno. 

Jeno purses his lips. “More like I have faith in myself,” he says simply, rolling his eyes. Here’s the thing: most of the time, Jeno isn’t funny at all, really. But sometimes he says things that are decently hilarious, and Donghyuck always finds himself laughing like they’re his favorite Vine compilation on Youtube.

+++

By the time Donghyuck’s about to leave for his Interview, already finished with his Speech, Jeno arrives at their table. He’s wiping at the back of his mouth, pale and miserable-looking.

“Hey,” Donghyuck says, stopping him with a hand on the shoulder. “What’s up?”

“I fucked up,” Jeno replies. “I _fucked_ up.”

“What do you mean?” Donghyuck asks. “Jeno—”

Jeno pushes Donghyuck’s hands away--yeah, that kind of _hurts_ \--and steps back. “I fucked up,” he says. “It’s--whatever, Donghyuck, you need to go to your interview—”

“Right,” Donghyuck says faintly. “Will you be alright in time for your Interview—”

“I’ll _make_ it alright,” Jeno replies. “Now go, you don’t want to miss it.”

It’s only until after Jeno’s done with his interview, when the team is waiting for the Awards Ceremony to start, that Jeno reveals what happened. He’s no longer as ghostly-looking as he was when Donghyuck had intercepted him. 

“Messed up impromptu,” Jeno tells him, shaking his head the entire time. “I couldn’t help it--I just completely blanked, and I couldn’t even--I couldn’t even make a _sound_ for a solid fifteen seconds, though in the moment it felt like an _hour_.” 

“That’s so shitty,” Donghyuck replies. “So you got the time penalty?”

“Definitely,” Jeno says, rubbing at his eyes. Jaemin, on the other side of Jeno, pats his head as he does so. “Ugh.” 

Donghyuck doesn’t even hesitate, now--he puts his arm around Jeno, Jaemin’s arm soon stacking on top of Donghyuck’s. 

“It’ll be okay,” Jaemin says. “You have Nationals to make up for it, too, you know?”

“We haven’t made Nationals yet,” Donghyuck reminds him, because he never resists the urge to correct Jaemin Na. 

Jaemin rolls his eyes. “You know what I meant.”

“Yeah,” Jeno replies. “We do.”

+++

There are only a few differences between the February meet Awards Ceremony and Awards Ceremony for the State Tournament, namely the following:

1\. The top scoring individuals for each event actually receive medals instead of ribbons, which is definitely a step up. Halfway through awards, Jaemin starts to complain about how heavy all of them are around his neck, and Hyunjin promptly flicks his forehead.  
2\. Jeno doesn’t place in Speech, which is both expected and devastating. But he _does_ end up being the highest scorer in the objective subjects overall. As for Donghyuck?  
3\. Well, Donghyuck beats Yerim-fucking-Kim by forty points, breaks 8500, and is crowned the state champion. Which is pretty damn nice, overall. 

“Congrats,” Jeno tells him on the bus ride home. They’re riding in the dark night, not even bothering to look at the scores at this point. “You deserved it.”

“You deserve it, too,” Donghyuck says. He leans closer, but he still can’t quite make out the expression on Jeno’s face, shrouded in shadow. “You’ll pop off at Nats, okay?”

“I will,” Jeno promises. “But, Donghyuck.” He pauses. They regard each other, unseeing in the darkness, for a moment. “Don’t feel guilty or anything. You really worked hard—”

“Thanks,” Donghyuck interrupts. He’s too afraid to hear the rest of it. He’s too afraid to fall further for this earnest, befuddling boy. “I mean it.”

“I mean it, too,” Jeno replies. They don’t say much to each other for the rest of the bus ride. 

Donghyuck is content to stare out the window, at the red back lights of the surrounding cars, and revel in Jeno’s quiet warmth beside him.


	5. Chapter 5

PART V. 

_Hi Team,_

_Congratulations on winning the 2019 Academic Decathlon State Championship yesterday. You worked all year long to achieve this goal, and you did it. Awesome. This victory marks the 10th consecutive state title for our high school. That's quite a tradition you are now a part of, and I am proud of you._

_At the next meeting, I will:_

_1/hand out comprehensive state meet scores and debrief highs and lows  
2/hand out important field trip permission materials to satisfy requirements  
3/explain how the online Essay and Art tests work for nationals and most importantly when they occur; the entire country has to take them at the same exact time across all time zones and no make-ups are allowed_

_From,  
Coach Nakamoto_

+++

Nationals, as it turns out, is a whole other kind of ball game. Donghyuck had expected this, sure, but he's still surprised by some of the details Mr. Nakamoto tells them:

"Was he _serious_? A math test with forty-five questions?" Donghyuck asks after the meeting, shaking his head in disbelief as they walk through the hallways. "How the hell is anyone gonna be able to finish the test in time?" Normally, all Acadec tests have fifty questions, except for Math, the most time-consuming subject by far, which has--or had, at least--thirty-five questions.

Jaemin shrugs. "Last year, at Nats, there was a thirty-way tie for first place," he says. "That's probably a part of it."

It's mathematics. A thirty-way tie for first place means a _thirty-way tie for a perfect score_. Donghyuck looks over at Jeno, and his face must reveal some of what he's feeling, for Jeno reaches over Jaemin to pat Donghyuck's shoulder.

"Come on, it'll be fine," Jeno says. "You're focusing more on Literature and Art anyways, right?"

Donghyuck hums. "That's true." Obviously he wants to do well in all of his events, but there are only a couple he completely and totally wants to medal in: Literature, Art, and Music. The others would just be the icing on the cake, so to speak.

"Nationals is..." Jaemin sighs. "It's so fucking stressful, but Mr. Nakamoto makes sure that it's really fun once you're done competing. Like, we leave on Sunday morning, but the entire Saturday will basically be free after Awards."

"There isn't a lot of fun stuff in Minnesota, is there?" Jeno asks, wrinkling his nose.

"I mean, the Mall of America," Jaemin replies. "The team usually watches movies in the hotel together, too."

Donghyuck shrugs. "We need to make it through the competition first," he points out. "I can't believe we have the Essay _and_ Art to take next week." Academic Decathlon truly is a grind that never stops.

"Hopefully one of the Essay prompts is Art-based," Jaemin says. "Hit two birds with one stone, right?"

"I guess," Jeno says, stopping in his tracks. "This--it's so tiring, sometimes."

"Yeah," Jaemin replies. "It is."

Donghyuck stops ahead of them and turns around, watching them regard each other. It's a small moment, a hurting moment. And then they do what they always do. The only thing that Donghyuck _can_ do, sometimes, when it's late and he's poring over the last page of an Acadec packet:

They keep going.

+++

Donghyuck keeps driving forward, pushing through. Between coffee orders and shitty cafeteria hot chocolate, between the slow melting of snow and spring showers, days of studying pass by swiftly. Before he knows it, he's sitting at the airport with the rest of the team, waiting for their flight to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"Okay, you guys have about an hour and a half or so before boarding starts," Yuta tells them. "So just grab some lunch before then, alright?"

Jeno and Donghyuck have to finish up a pesky assignment for AP Bio, though--it's one of those damn online Moodle quizzes that is due tonight exactly at 11:59pm--so they let Jaemin and the others go off to eat and complete the assignment first. By the time they're finished, the rest of the team has already come back with their take out of choice--Yerim's holding a Chipotle bag, while most of the others are split between Five Guys and Panera Bread.

"I'm _hungry_ ," Donghyuck whines as soon as he closes the tab to the quiz. He also didn't get a perfect ten points out of ten, unlike Jeno, which doesn't exactly boost his morale. "Let's go eat, okay?"

They settle into a comfortable silence as they walk through the length of the terminal. It's almost like a mall, in some ways, except for the constant flight announcements over the intercom. Donghyuck never thought that he'd be able to just _exist_ like this, at ease so _easily_ , with Jeno Lee. It's nice.

"Should we eat here?" Jeno asks, stopping at the first fast-food place they come across, which happens to be Chipotle.

Donghyuck wrinkles his nose. "Nah," he says. His sister got food poisoning from Chipotle a couple years back, and since then he has steered clear of there. "Let's try Five Guys?"

At Five Guys, Donghyuck is so hungry that he doesn't want to wait through the walk back to their gate.

"Let's just eat here," Donghyuck suggests, tugging on Jeno as he begins to leave. "It'll be a lot faster, and I'm _starving_."

"Okay," Jeno agrees. So Donghyuck sits across from him awkwardly, knees knocking against his. It's--nice. It feels precious, somehow, to look across the table and see Jeno biting into some french fries.

"What topic are you the most nervous about?" Jeno asks him between bites.

Donghyuck groans. "Let's try to not talk about Acadec right now, please," he says. "One more second and I think I'll die."

Jeno laughs. "Okay, okay," he replies. "How about--okay, what do you wanna do once Nationals is over?"

"Like right after the tournament?" Donghyuck replies. "Or once we reach home?"

"Could be either." Jeno shrugs.

"Watch Endgame," is Donghyuck's immediate response. "I guess visit the Mall of America, too, but I don't think I'll actually do any shopping." He never gets any enjoyment out of buying clothes with friends, honestly.

"Same," Jeno says. "I totally wanna watch it, too." A pause, then: "We should see it together."

"After Nationals?" Donghyuck asks. After Nationals, of course, is AP week, but he doesn't want to think about that. Right now, _after Nationals_ seems like this hazy oasis where anything is possible. Where he could possibly try to make a move on Jeno.

Jeno opens his mouth to reply, when--

"Donghyuck, Jeno," Mr. Nakamoto greets, slightly out of breath. He stands in front of them with his hands on his hips, his expression a mixture between worry and amusement. "The plane's going to start boarding in five minutes, so you guys should head back. Sorry to interrupt your..." here Mr. Nakamoto pauses dramatically to look over the two of them, before continuing, "lunch."

Donghyuck's cheeks burn with embarrassment. All of a sudden he is too aware of the way he's leaning forward to take in Jeno's smile, of the way his feet rest casually against Jeno's Superstars. "Sorry," he says, already beginning to collect his trash. Jeno repeats the same soft apologies.

"Lost track of time, huh?" Mr. Nakamoto says, shaking his head. He mutters something unintelligible under his breath--Donghyuck imagines it as some millennial version of _kids these days_ \--before walking away.

"Oops," Jeno says as they speed-walk to their gate. "Do you think Mr. Nakamoto's mad?"

Donghyuck shakes his head. "No, not mad," he replies. "But--it's kind of awkward, I don't know..." He felt vulnerable, when Mr. Nakamoto saw the two of them together. Exposed. Like someone had taken a cross section of his body and looked into his heart and saw what he really wanted.

On the plane, Donghyuck is nestled in between Jisung Park and Chenle Zhong, the two underclassmen on the C division. Too tired to do anything else, he falls asleep as Jisung and Chenle squabble over his body about Brawlstars.

Donghyuck dreams in disjoint fragments, in a nightmarish sort of fervor. _John F. Kennedy… Nam June Paik… The Beatles…_ and at the end of it all, there’s Jeno’s sparkling smile that stays with him long after he wakes. 

"Okay, so here's the plan, team," Mr. Nakamoto says, when they finally arrive at their hotel. Teams are milling about--mostly distinguished by their t-shirt colors--and it's difficult to hear him over the nearby chatter. "I'm going to give you your rooming assignments, and then you'll have thirty minutes to rest and relax. Then, you'll head down to my room, and you'll rehearse your speech one last time in front of me and Taeyong. Sounds good?"

Everyone nods. Tomorrow--Thursday--is just the Speech and Interview day, with all of the testing for objective subjects--besides Art, which they already took the test for--taking place the day after that.

"What are the rooming assignments?" Jaemin asks as they enter the elevator.

Donghyuck almost trips over a suitcase, but Jeno grabs his elbow and shoots him a quick smile before it's too late. _Calm down_ , he tells himself.

"Uh, let me see," Mr. Nakamoto says. "Actually, I think Taeyong--"

"Yes, I have it," Mr. Lee says. He was Donghyuck's English teacher during freshman year, and is probably one of the kindest people Donghyuck has ever met. Being an English teacher, in Donghyuck's opinion, is probably one of the hardest teaching jobs--grading papers sounds like such a drag--but Mr. Lee has always done the job with such patience and enthusiasm.

Mr. Lee clears his throat. "We have all of the girls in 711, and I'll be staying in 710 with Mr. Nakamoto. Then, Jisung, Chenle, and Jaemin will be right across in 708, with Jeno and Donghyuck in 709."

So Donghyuck'll be sharing a room with Jeno. _Alone_. Almost immediately, Jaemin's pointy elbow jabs into his side, his eyebrows raised mischievously. Donghyuck rolls his eyes in response. As if anything could--or _would_ \--happen.

**Author's Note:**

> if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading!!! comments & kudos are really welcome <3
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/mathmxrk) // [cc](https://curiouscat.me/mathmxrk) // [ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/fullmoonjournal) *-*


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